Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 271(@200wpm)___ 217(@250wpm)___ 181(@300wpm)
Griff blinks. “Wait, seriously?”
“Top spot guaranteed in the Battle itself tomorrow night.”
My jaw drops. “Zara! That’s fucking—”
“No, Carson,” she says quietly, shutting me right down like water over a fire. She shakes her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “Just no.”
“Zara—”
“What in the hell is going on here!”
A shrill voice cuts into us from behind, and when we whirl, I instantly scowl.
Fuck.
I don’t know the thirty-some-odd year-old woman glaring daggers at us, but I do know what an RA looks like.
“Nothing, we’ve got this,” Griff hisses at her.
She balks.
“Excuse me, young man?!” She sputters. “Get away from Ms. Bateman this instance!”
“Can you fuck off please?” Anders growls.
Her face goes crimson with rage; her eyes wide as she sputters.
“Oh that is it!” She yanks a phone out of her pocket and dials a number. “I’m calling campus police!”
“Great, you do that,” I hiss, whirling back to Zara. “Zara, please, just—”
“Ms. Bateman!” The RA screeches again. “I will ask you just once what the hell is going on here!”
“Nothing, Cynthia,” Zara says icily, her eyes glaring at each of us. “I have no idea why they’re here. Probably just some stupid dumb jock prank.”
There’s the sound of yelling, and suddenly, the elevator at the end of the hall opens and five tough looking guys in campus safety uniforms tumble out.
“Over here!” Cynthia screeches, waving her hands as if there’s any possible way the guys are going to miss what’s going on over here. The campus police charge over, and I bristle.
“Need you boys out of here right now!” One of them barks.
“And I need you to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here!” Anders roars back.
There’s about one second of shock where the guys are clearly trying to put it together that a student has actually just said that to them, before their eyes narrow. The five of them move towards us, and suddenly, I realize this is about to go south, quick.
…Because there is no way on this earth any of us are willingly walking away from Zara ever again. Not even here, under these circumstances.
“I’m giving you boys to the count of three to get your asses out of this dorm,” the head officer grumbles. “Or there’s going to be some serious trouble.”
“Yeah?” I spit, smiling widely. “Trouble from you and what fucking army?”
The man’s jaw tightens.
“One.”
“Hey, officer dickhead,” Griff growls, advancing on them. “Can you please fuck off!”
“Two!”
“Goddamnit, Zara—”
“No, Carson,” she says quietly, cutting me off as she shakes her head. Her eyes dart between us, pleading with us.
“Just go, okay? Just go. It’s over. It’s all over.”
“Fuck, Zara,” Anders growls. “Don’t—”
“Three!” the officer barks. “Now, get your asses out of this—”
“Oh fuck off!” I snarl.
The man blinks, his face darkens, and suddenly, he just charges me.
Yep, now it’s on.
Griff hits him from the side, slamming him the ground with a roar. And before they even hit the floor, I’m already lunging at another officer. I grunt as he slams me into the wall, but I get a fist into his side, knocking the wind out of him. Another guy lunges on top of Griff, trying to wrestle him off the captain, and another guard roars as he sinks a fist across Anders’s face.
The hall is filled with girls—some screaming for us to stop, more gasping in shock, some filming. Zara is yelling at us, tears flooding out of her eyes, but when I turn to go to her, one guard suddenly grabs me by the arms. The guy I tackled gets to his feet, spits, grins at me wickedly, and then punches me in the gut.
After that, it’s just a blur of chaos. I know the three of us fight the five of them for some time before the real, actual cops show up. And then that shit is over. We’re dragged away from Zara’s door, the three of us just staring at her unblinking, trying to tell her without words how sorry we are. But, it’s over, and I think we all know that as we get dragged out of Marshall hall, and away from the love of our lives.
17
Griffin
Needless to say, we’re in some serious shit.
Being in the girls’ dorm ever is pretty much some serious shit on its own. Even if you’re a football player. School royalty or not, no one is keen on a bunch of testosterone-laden guys prowling those halls. Throw in it being after curfew? Yeah, that’s even more shit. Now, toss in us telling the head RA to go fuck herself? Real, real bad.
But, the icing on the shit cake might be getting into a fucking Wrestle-Mania brawl with five of Winchester Academy’s finest campus safety officers.
That’s what takes this from “we’re in some shit” to “we’re in the kind of shit where even our parents’ money and a new campus library isn’t going to fix it.” Apparently, we did some damage to the campus officers. One guy’s got a broken nose. The other might have a broken arm. Needless to say, suspension is looking real imminent.